


Break and Bend

by enigmaticblue



Series: Sun 'Verse [6]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-29
Updated: 2010-11-29
Packaged: 2017-10-13 10:50:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/136506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enigmaticblue/pseuds/enigmaticblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean smiled. “Humans—we either break or we bend, Cas. And sometimes, when we break, we just have to pick up the pieces.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Break and Bend

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the hc_bingo prompt “broken bones.”

The first thing Cas noticed when he opened his eyes was that he was—quite literally—seeing stars; the second was that every inch of his body hurt; and the third was Dean’s increasingly frantic calls somewhere above Cas’ head.

“Dean,” Cas called back, his voice small and weak even to his own ears. He moved his head cautiously as his vision cleared, pairing the smell of damp earth with the bottom of the ravine he’d fallen into.

Cas groaned. Dean wasn’t going to let him live this down anytime soon.

“Cas!” Dean shouted. “Talk to me!”

“Here!” he said as loudly as he could, which wasn’t very.

Dean must have been close, because he appeared at the edge of the bank. “Are you okay?” he demanded. “You just disappeared on me.”

“The bank crumbled,” Cas replied. “So be careful.”

“Ben! Over here!” Dean shouted, and then began sliding down the steep slope. “Are you okay?”

Cas realized he hadn’t answered the question and took careful stock. “No, I don’t think I am,” he admitted. “Everything hurts.”

“Okay.” Dean skidded to a stop a few feet away. “Can you be a little more specific?”

“My head,” Cas said, doing an inventory from the top down. “I think I’m bleeding.”

“Head wounds are a bitch,” Dean agreed, kneeling next to Cas. “But it doesn’t look too bad. What else?”

Cas took a breath and felt the sharp pain in his side. “Ribs. And my ankle.”

“Fuck,” Dean said succinctly.

Cas sighed. His clumsiness had ruined what was supposed to be a hiking trip. “I’m sorry. This was supposed to be fun.”

“Not your fault,” Dean replied.

“Dad!” Ben called out above them.

“Down here! Be careful,” Dean ordered. 

Ben scrambled nimbly down the slope, his eyes wide when he spotted Cas. “Cas? Are you okay?”

“I’ll be fine.” Cas managed a smile, but he knew it was a weak one.

Dean handed Ben the keys to the Jeep. “I need you to take Mary and Henry and go to the Jeep. Send them back with the first aid supplies and the rope in the back, and then drive the Jeep as close as you possibly can.”

Ben’s eyes went even wider. “You want me to drive?”

“Just like we practiced out in the field,” Dean said. “Don’t rush. I’m going to make Cas as comfortable as I can, and then I’ll need your help getting him up the slope again.”

Henry’s voice called out above them. “Papa Dean?”

“Stay where you are!” Dean called. “Go on now, Ben. We’ll be fine.”

Ben gulped, but he nodded and began scrambling up the crumbling bank. Even with youth and agility on his side, he slipped a couple of times, and Cas winced at the idea of climbing up the steep bank of the ravine. He couldn’t remember the trip down, but it had taken a lot less time than the hike up would.

Cas could just make out Ben’s voice as he explained the situation to the two other children and began herding them back to the Jeep.

“So much for a day out,” Cas said.

Dean shook his head. “Stop that. It’s not your fault the ground gave way right underneath you.”

“I shouldn’t have been so close to the edge,” he replied.

“No sense crying over spilled milk,” Dean said philosophically. “I’m going to need to get your boot off before your foot swells too much. We’ll try splinting it before we go up the hill.”

“You’re going to have a hard time with that,” Cas pointed out. “With your leg—”

Dean shook his head. “One thing at a time. Which ankle?”

“The right.”

Dean turned his attention to Cas’ boot, unlacing it and easing it off the already-swelling foot. Cas hissed and bit back a whimper. “Sorry,” Dean muttered. “This is going to hurt like a bitch. Just hang on.”

Cas closed his eyes against the pain. Dean’s fingers were cool against the heated skin of Cas’ ankle, and Dean gently moved it back and forth. Cas couldn’t hold back the cry of pain.

“Sorry,” Dean said again. “I think your ankle is just a really bad sprain, but you may have broken a couple of bones in your foot. You’re going to need an X-ray to be sure.”

Cas shook his head. “The nearest hospital—”

“Is half a day away, I’m aware,” Dean said. “But if any of the bones need to be set, you’re going to need a real doctor. Otherwise, walking is going to be a big fucking problem, and I’m not letting that happen if you’ve got another choice.”

Cas suspected that Dean was thinking of his own leg, and all the problems he had with it. “I understand.” 

“Let me see the ribs,” Dean said. “Same side?”

“Yeah.” Cas lifted his shirt and closed his eyes as Dean carefully felt along his side. He whimpered as Dean hit an especially sore spot.

“Definitely a couple broken ribs,” Dean said. “We’ll have to wrap them. I think our best bet is to wrap your ribs and ankle, and then haul you up. Do you think you can hold onto a rope?”

“There’s no way I’ll get out of this ravine otherwise,” Cas said. “Especially with your leg. I think I’ll have to hold on.”

Dean gave him a sympathetic look. “Yeah. We’ll make it as painless as possible.”

Cas just grabbed Dean’s hand and hung on tight. “Distract me.”

“I don’t think you’re in any shape for that kind of distraction,” Dean replied with a smile.

Cas shook his head. “I didn’t mean with that. Just talk to me.”

Dean flushed. “What do you want me to talk about?”

“Anything.”

“You already know everything there is to know about me,” Dean protested. “You know me better than pretty much anybody, Cas.”

Cas closed his eyes. “Then tell me something I already know. I just want to hear the sound of your voice.”

“Fuck, Cas. Telling me to talk without giving me a subject is like telling someone not to think about a polar bear.”

Cas cracked an eyelid. “A polar bear?”

“Don’t think about a polar bear,” Dean ordered.

Cas frowned as an image of a polar bear popped into his head.

“You’re thinking about a polar bear, aren’t you?” Dean asked with a grin.

“Yes.”

“That’s the point. Telling someone to just talk without giving them a topic is just as impossible.”

“I see your point.” Cas thought for a minute. “Have you ever broken a bone?”

“Sure, plenty of times,” Dean said easily. “A few ribs, a couple of fingers. The worst was when I broke my right arm. I was twenty, and Dad wouldn’t let me go on any hunts with him until I was healed up. Sam had to cut my meat for me for a month, and I finally sawed the cast off myself, I was so sick of it.”

The silence that followed Dean’s statement was a different sort of silence, born of painful memories. “Sam left home a couple of years later,” Dean added. “Went off to college without a backwards glance.”

“I’m sure he missed you,” Cas said, hoping that it was the right thing to say under the circumstances.

“I’m not,” Dean replied. “Sometimes I thought that for Sam family was something to run away from, not hold on to.”

Cas was spared from having to find a response to that by the sound of someone approaching. Mary and Henry slid down the hill a few seconds later, carrying the blanket, rope, and first aid kit from the back of the Jeep. 

“Ben’s right behind us,” Henry said breathless. “He said he’d help you with Papa Cas as soon as he parked the Jeep. Is that okay?”

“You did great, Henry,” Dean replied, ruffling his hair.

Mary was already on her knees next to Cas, her hands fluttering in wordless anxiety.

“I’m fine,” he assured her. “Just a little bruised is all.”

“He’s in no danger, Mary,” Dean said, putting an arm around her thin shoulders and squeezing. “We’ll get him to a doctor, and he’ll be good as new in no time.”

Dean wasted no time in wrapping Cas’ ribs with the Ace bandage in the first aid kit, and his ankle with the splint and gauze. Dean was still enough of a hunter to have a well stocked kit with him at all times, and he set Mary to work on cleaning out the wound on Cas’ forehead while he worked on the ankle.

“Good job,” Dean praised her when she had finished. “Really good job, Mary.”

She smiled, clearly pleased, and—task completed—she asked what they were going to do next.

“We’ll take him to Rapid City. We have to pass back through town anyway, so we’ll drop you off with Maryanne,” Dean replied.

Mary and Henry both shook their heads rapidly. “No!” Henry protested. “We want to stay with you!”

“We don’t know how long we’re going to be there,” Dean replied. “And we’re not sure what the hospital is going to be like. I need to know that you guys are okay.”

Mary frowned, her hands outlining the shape of her argument.

“I’m sorry, Mary,” Cas said firmly. “But we may need to leave the hospital unexpectedly, and it will be much easier to do that if it’s just the two of us.”

Both Henry and Mary wore discontented expressions at that edict, but Mary gave in with a reluctant nod.

“It’s not fair,” Henry still protested. “We could help. We could distract the doctors!”

“I’d rather you not turn to a life of crime just yet,” Dean replied drily. “Maybe in a few more years.”

“Dad! I got the Jeep,” Ben announced from above their heads.

“All right, Cas,” Dean said. “Let’s get this done.”

The trip up the hill was as nightmarish as Cas had feared it would be. He helped Ben and Dean as much as he could, but his right foot was all but useless, and his ribs made it nearly impossible to put any weight at all on his right arm.

After the third or fourth time Cas jarred his ankle on a rough part of the bank, he passed out, coming to while Dean was untying the rope from under Cas’ arms.

“Do you think you can make it to the Jeep if Ben and I help you?” Dean asked.

Cas took a deep breath and gasped at the sharp stab of pain. “I’ll have to, won’t I?”

“We can try a fireman’s carry, but I’m worried about those ribs,” Dean replied. “If I jar you too much...”

He trailed off, and Cas could hear what he wasn’t saying. One of the ribs might puncture a lung, and Cas might not make it to Rapid City if that happened.

“Let’s get this over with,” Cas said wearily.

His world narrowed to Dean on his left, Ben on his right, the rough ground under his feet, and the pain that shot through him with every jolt. Out of the corner of his eye, Cas could see the grim twist of Dean’s mouth, worry and pain in every line of his face.

Cas knew that this must be hard on Dean’s bad leg, and he felt the sharp pang of regret. If he’d only been more careful...

“Stop it,” Dean snapped. “I can _hear_ you worrying. I’m fine.”

“The Jeep is just ahead!” Henry shouted, urging them on.

Cas nearly collapsed in the backseat, drenched in a cold sweat, every inch of him aching. Ben and Henry squeezed into the front passenger seat, and Mary slid into the back, folding up the blanket over her lap, and moving so that Cas’ head rested on her thigh.

She stroked his forehead, her eyes crinkled with worry.

“I’ll be fine,” he promised. “I just need to sleep.”

The next few hours were hazy. Later, Cas could vaguely recall dropping the kids off at Maryanne’s drug store, and Maryanne sticking her head in the back of the Jeep to check on him. He could remember only bits and pieces of the jolting ride to Rapid City, feeling every bump in the road while he was awake, and therefore looking forward to the periods of unconsciousness.

By the time they arrived at the hospital, Cas was half delirious from pain and shock, and he could never able to remember how he’d gotten from the Jeep into a hospital bed, or the X-rays.

When he finally woke up completely, Dean was asleep in the chair beside his bed, which was in a curtained-off partition of a larger room. Cas had no trouble hearing the squeak of rubber-soled shoes on tile, the incessant beeping of monitors, and the rustling of stiff hospital sheets.

Cas’ clothes were still on, although someone had cut his jeans up to the right knee, and his right foot and ankle was encased in a stiff boot. The pain felt far away now, and Cas relaxed back into the uncomfortable mattress.

He remained awake, though, just watching Dean, taking in the strands of silver in his hair and beard, the way the fluorescent lights yellowed his skin, making him appear ill. Dean’s bad leg was stretched out in front of him, and he had an ice pack on his knee. Cas wondered if a nurse or doctor had noticed his limp and given it to him, or if Dean had asked.

Usually, Cas made sure that Dean took care of himself, and he suddenly wondered who would perform the same function if he wasn’t around. He might not be entirely human now, but he was close enough to it. If he died—

Cas swallowed. He didn’t like the thought of Dean being on his own, even if Maryanne and Howl and some of the others in town would help out.

Dean’s eyes opened, and he awoke instantly, his gaze sharpening as he realized Cas was awake. “Hey. How are you feeling?”

“Much better,” Cas replied. “How bad?”

“Fractured ankle and two broken ribs,” Dean replied. “Plus a mild concussion. It could have been a lot worse.”

“Are we going to need to leave quietly?” Cas asked.

A hint of a smile quirked Dean’s lips. “No, I worked something out with the doctors here. We’ll get it taken care of, although they’re probably going to kick you out of your bed pretty soon.”

“I’m ready to go home,” Cas asserted.

Dean nodded. “I’ll talk to the doctor.”

“Dean—” Cas called when Dean had pushed aside the curtain to limp off in search of a doctor. “Thank you.”

Dean just shook his head. “You know I’m always going to take care of you, Cas,” he said. “Just like you do for me.”

“Even though I’m not—” Cas cut off the question, knowing that it was stupid, that whether he was an angel or not, it didn’t matter to Dean.

Dean smiled. “Humans—we either break or we bend, Cas. And sometimes, when we break, we just have to pick up the pieces.”

Cas eased back, thinking about what Dean had said. He was used to watching others in pain, and in watching out for Dean or the children as they suffered. Being taken care of, that was something different.

It seemed he had a new lesson to learn.


End file.
